英語と中国語を同時に学ぶ！ CCTV Growing up with Chinese英文書き取り1500分100本勝負

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us for today’s episode of Growing up with Chinese. 这里是成长汉语. 欢迎大家收看.

Now we’ve got a busy show today in part because it’s sports day at 小明, Mike and 兰兰’s school. Now, everyone is signing up for all of the various events, and things are quite 热闹, there are full of hustle and bustle. So let’s now go over to school and see just what kind of preparations are going on.

All right let’s take a moment to go through some of the main phrases we just heard in our clip.

下周五, 学校要召开运动会. 这是报名表格. 请同学们踊跃报名, 为我们班争光. Next Friday the school is holding sports day. This is the sign up sheet. Please everyone show your enthusiasm and sign up to bring honor to our class. Now 召开 means to hold as in hold a sports meet or 运动会. 召开运动会. 报名 is to sign up for something and 表格 is form or sheet. 踊跃 is how you say eagerly or enthusiastically. So 踊跃报名 is to sign up with enthusiasm. 争光 is a set saying that means bring honor to.

我们再好好儿训练一下, 一定能打破全校记录. If we really practice for sure we can break the school record. 打破 is to break and 全校 refers to the entire school. 记录 is record as in world record or school record. 打破全校记录 to break the school record.

刚才我跑步的时候, 隔着老远就能听到你这个大嗓门啦啦队的加油声. Just then when I was running, I could hear your loud cheering squad cheers a mile away. 隔着老远 is like saying 隔着很远, which means a long way away or a mile away. 嗓门 is voice so 大嗓门 is loud voice. 加油声 is the sound of your cheers.

你简直就是我们学校的女刘翔. You’re simply our school’s female 刘翔. Now 简直 means simply. 刘翔 I’m sure most of you have heard of; he’s a member of China’s national track and field team and an amazing hurdler. So 小明 is paying 兰兰 a huge compliment here.

All right everyone it’s time to take a look at today’s vocabulary and our pinyin highlight.

First off though let’s look at some specific vocabulary words.

通知 notice, notification. tōng zhī

运动会 sports meet, games, athletic meet. yùn dòng huì

加油 this is a specific saying used to cheer people on, similar to “come on,” or “go.” jiā yóu

冠军 champion. guàn jūn

参与 participate in. cān yù

祝贺 congratulations. zhù hè

All right, for today’s pinyin highlight let’s take a look at 冠军.

All right. So we have 冠. g-u-a-n. guan guan. And our tone is fourth and our marker goes above the a, guàn.

军… jun jun our marker goes above the u and it’s first tone. All right. Now, the u in jūn has a slight umlaut sound jǖn jǖn. OK, so the pronunciation of jūn can be a little bit tricky, but don’t worry, with practice, I’m sure, you’ll do just fine.

It’s language point time everyone, so let’s start with 可惜.

可惜 means unfortunately, or it’s a pity, or it’s too bad. Now it can either function as an adverb or an adjective. But when it’s an adverb, it has to come before the subject like how we see it used in today’s dialogue. 可惜这次运动会没有橄榄球, 要不你肯定是全校的大明星. It’s too bad there isn’t any football at this sports day, otherwise you’d be our school superstar for sure. Now you could also say 这真是个可是的事情. This is a really unfortunate happening.

篮球比赛怎么样？／特棒，可惜你没和我们一起去。

再好不过了. This is a set saying expressing agreement and implying that there isn’t a better alternative. 再好不过了. You hear it a lot in spoken Chinese but you wouldn’t usually find it in writing. So today in response to Mike saying that he would enter the relay with 小明 and they could practice together, 小明 said 那再好不过了. That would be perfect or that would be awesome. Now another example could be 大热天, 吃冰西瓜, 这个主意可是再好不过了. Eating cold watermelon on a really hot day is the best idea ever.

兰兰，你要去买书吗？ 我陪你去把。／那再好不过了。

无所谓. This means it doesn’t matter or it’s to express in difference, either way. 我们重在参与, 拿个亚军, 季军什么的也行, 无所谓吧. It’s participation that matters, getting second place or third place is OK too, it doesn’t matter. Now you could also say 今天去, 还是明天去, 我无所谓, 都可以. I don’t mind if we go today or tomorrow, either is fine. OK let’s look at some more 无所谓 examples.

OK so last show I gave you all a word game to solve and today I’ll be giving you the answer, so why don’t we take a look at it? OK so here are characters remember them all? So shall we find out the right order? OK. 如果 is first. 你, 请客 如果你请客, 我, 就, 跟你去. So here is our sentence. 如果你请客, 我就跟你去. Did you get it right?

Well I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling some sympathetic exhaustion having watched everyone at sports day today. It’s time to call it a day for us but before we go though I want to quickly respond to a letter we received from Sarah in 北京 actually, she says:

“I saw a green melon in the market that everyone said was a vegetable! It was white inside in people were buying in large slices. Do you have any idea what it could be?” Thanks.

OK Sarah. If I’m guessing correctly, you saw a 冬瓜 or a winter melon. You might know it actually as an ash gourd or a white gourd. And typically it’s a fruit vegetable used in Chinese soups mostly. Now it doesn’t really taste like much, but it has a really long shelf life*1 and will take on the flavor of whatever it’s cooked with. So there you are I think that’s what you saw.

OK, that’s a wrap. Now, to everyone else please don’t forget to check out our website if you have any questions or need to review anything, and I shall see you all next time. 好了, 大家, 加油, 下次见. Goodbye.